Thursday, January 31, 2008

Dymphna has written on severaloccasions about the plight of foreign maids, mostly from Southeast Asia, who work in Saudi Arabia in near-slave conditions. Asian women in the region are particularly vulnerable to exploitation. But men are also subject to oppressive employment conditions throughout the Persian Gulf region.

This is a significant issue, since non-citizens comprise as much as one third of the population of the countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates). Of the 33 million people in the region, about 11 million are resident foreigners, mostly guest workers from Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.

I bring this topic up because of an email exchange with P. Mijhar, a native of Nepal who worked for a period in Saudi Arabia and then returned home. Mr. Mijhar has this to say:

Respected sir,

I need your help to publish my article, in which I would like to shed some light on the government policy which is weaker and not enforceable in Saudi Arabia for most of the Asian migrant workers, because the government lacks the mechanism to monitor all the problems and issues concerning it.

Most of the privately owned companies are paying either very low pay wages, or force workers to work 9 to 10 hour shifts with a very low pay scale. As per international labor law only 8 hours is considered as the standard regular shift, but these privately owned companies are doing all sorts of monopoly abuses to their migrant workers every day, due to lack of a government policy to protect them from such acts.

If some of the employees try to react or protest to it then they will be punished or terminated from their work and then sent back to their country under another rationale. This is the really inhuman nature of Saudi Arabia for every foreign worker who is among them contributing to the work force and helping in developing their country for long periods of time.

There are no legal welfare funds for these migrant workers if they have some accident or some serious sickness and need medical payments. When they become physically disabled or not able to continue their work for the company, they are abandoned or thrown out of the company like waste material, or they stay unnoticed as their presence is denied.

It’s because there is no legal medical insurance or system to check these problems. Even when they try to make claims to the labor authorities, they are not able to succeed with companies, as some of those companies belong to high dignitaries or Royals.

That’s why even though King Abdullah recently changed and reformed the system, as there is still no international body present to implement it. Every international humanitarian organization knows that in Saudi Arabia all the Asian migrant workers are barred from the all those facilities and rights that are provided to others.

If people from other countries in Africa and other continents are paid S.R.1000.00 basic salary then Asian workers are provided below PAR, they are paid a range to S.R. 400.00 to 800.00 maximum. This is based on an the irrational method and partial terms they are applying to Asian migrant workers.

The truth is they have insurance policies in most of the companies, but if employees are discharged for medical reasons, some company officials claim this insurance money for themselves from the insurance company, and do not provide it to workers as promised in their contract, since there are no government legal rules they are bound by.

This is the most critical part of the Saudi government policy that should be changed for Asian migrant workers, as they are also contributing to the development of Saudi Arabia day to day by providing the work force. They cannot deny this statement, as this is true and whole world knows it.

I have more proof to show that all these statements are true, and it should be considered a priority to have international humanitarian organizations or international labor organizations monitor the situation, in order to obtain better results in the future.

I worked previously in Saudi Arabia in a reputable company owned by high dignitaries. They really abandoned me after I became sick, and discharged me after working for 13 years in their company in the post of supervisor. I know a lot about the company monopoly in employee management, and the wages they are providing in that company, if you compare to others’ basic pay scale, are not satisfactory or appropriate.

Some, as I told you, are forced to work 9 hour shifts with very low pay, and they are helpless, as their government officials couldn’t do anything about it, since the Saudi government lacks any legal mechanism to monitor their status or provide welfare to them.

I’m now physically disabled due to a stroke while working in Saudi Arabia. You can write truly about me; I’m not afraid of any consequence might happen to me.

I’m willing to offer myself as a candidate for your story about how Asian migrant workers are dealt with after they are sick and physically disabled.

The outcry over the conditions for guest workers in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the GCC has forced the governments involved to at least give the appearance of taking action. In August of 2005 the Saudi government set up a special department to guard against the exploitation of foreign workers, according to the Migrants News Monitor blog (the original news story is no longer available).

But has anything changed? Last August Global Voices reported on the situation in the Persian Gulf as it affects Asian workers:

South Asian migrant workers (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal) have a notable contribution in the developments of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf region. But the abuse and exploitation of these workers is shocking and serious issue. Migrant workers fuel the engine of the economy but they are exploited, abused, discriminated against, and rarely receive government protection.

There are numerous stories of human rights abuses. Just to give some examples:

Thousands of labors sell their belongings to go to Gulf countries for their dream job. Drishtipat reports how they are being exploited and come back with a broken heart.

Hundreds of Nepali workers in Qatar have been driven from the country for demanding better pay from their employers. United We Blog posts a shocking firsthand experience of a young Nepali student returning from America. He describes the inhuman treatment he received in Bahrain International airport because he protested the mistreatment of the deported Nepalis by the Gulf Airlines staffers.

In Kuwait, almost 60% of its 3 million population are migrant workers. Expositions of Arabia Blog chats with an Indian worker in Kuwait who claims he is underpaid.

In United Arab Emirates guest workers make up 85% of its population (reports IHT). Here people from the subcontinent earns about $1 an hour working in scorching 43 degrees heat. Their contracts are critiqued as servitude. While there are hotel rooms that rent for $1000 a night for the prosperous people, these migrant workers rise before dawn in guarded camps like an army base, work for six days a week at guarded sites. There are thousands of heat exhaustion cases of workers each month in one medical facility alone. The Government is under pressure to improve the working conditions and crack downs on Employers who does not pay them.

Human rights watch also has a report on abuse of workers in UAE titled “Building Towers, Cheating Workers”.

Non-Saudis make up 35 percent of Saudi Arabia’s labor force. An estimated 2 million workers are from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Human rights Watch publishes a 135 page report “Bad Dreams: Exploitation and Abuse of Migrant Workers in Saudi Arabia”, which depicts how many of the immigrant workers are abused and treated as slaves.

Some of the frightening and troubling findings of the reports are:

Sexual abuse and rape of women migrant workers, both in the workplace and in Saudi prisons by Saudi male employers.

Migrant workers from Bangladesh, India and Philippines were forced to work ten to eighteen hours a day, and sometimes throughout the night without overtime pay.

The pay is very meager (e.g. $133 for a month and 16 hours of work daily)

Hundreds of low-paid Asian women who cleaned hospitals in Jeddah worked twelve-hour days, without food or a break, and were confined to locked dormitories during their time off.

Now, on January 23rd of this year, there is an “action plan”. According to AFP:

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) labour ministers and counterparts from Asia are to propose an action plan to protect the welfare of Asian workers, according to their Abu Dhabi Declaration.

The ministers have recommended the drawing up within three months of the plan aimed at “preventing illegal recruitment practices” both at the country of origin and in host countries.

The declaration also called for “promoting welfare and protection measures for contractual workers … and preventing their exploitation at origin and destination.”

Emirati Labour Minister Ali Al Kaabi said at the start of the ministerial meeting yesterday that “guest workers must be afforded the security that they will receive the benefits that they are entitled to”.

In 2005 a new department was created. This year, an action plan. Next year, a regulatory agency, perhaps?

More bureaucratic entities are created and funded. More task forces, committees, regulatory bodies, etc., etc.

But will anything change? Will Saudi Arabia accord any human rights to the infidel guest workers within its borders?

Considering the paucity of rights the king grants to his own subjects, I wouldn’t bet on it.

I referred in my previous post to the blood relationship between Yasser Arafat and the late Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammad Amin al-Husayni. Snouck and others disagreed with my assertion, citing Wikipedia to show that Arafat and al-Husayni were not related.

I don’t know who is correct — I’m not always willing to consider Wikipedia a reliable source on its own — but I’m not alone in asserting a consanguinity between the two famous Jew-haters.

Some sources say that Arafat was a nephew, and others that he was a cousin, of the Grand Mufti. According to Masada2000:- - - - - - - - -

Eventually the leadership of the PLO was taken over by a man named Rahman Abdul Rauf al-Qudwa al-Husseini. Al-Husseini was a nephew and great admirer of Uncle Haj Amin al-Husseini. He was born in Cairo in 1929 and grew up in the Gaza strip. His mother, Hamida, was a cousin of the Grand Mufti. Due to internal Arab strife, his father Abdul Rauf al-Qudwa was forced to flee Gaza where the family took refuge in Egypt.

Al-Husseini’s cousin is Faisal al-Husseini who is the grandson of Haj Amin al-Husseini and the PLO representative in Jerusalem who has directed attacks on the Jews praying at the Western Wall. When Rahman Abdul Rauf al-Qudwa al-Husseini enrolled at the University of Cairo in 1951, he decided to conceal his true identity and registered under the name “Yasser Arafat.”

If I remember correctly from my undergraduate cultural anthropology courses, in a traditional patrilineal kinship structure all older male blood relatives who are not direct ancestors are referred to as “uncles”, while those in one’s cohort are called “brothers”. Hence both these assertions could be true — the Grand Mufti was a cousin and also an uncle.

It’s also possible that there was no consanguineal relationship whatsoever, but that hasn’t been settled yet to my satisfaction.

Our Swedish correspondent LN sent me this photograph of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in company with some of his good friends:

I don’t know where LN found this photo, but he says it hasn’t been seen before.- - - - - - - - -Mohammad Amin al-Husayni was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem during the height of the Third Reich, and collaborated closely with the Nazi regime on an issue of mutual interest: the extermination of the Jews. He was particularly involved with Nazi operations in the Balkans, where Muslims from Bosnia and Serbia were actively recruited for the Waffen SS.

As a matter of interest, the Grand Mufti was also a cousin of Yasser Arafat, whose real name was Abd al-Rahman abd al-Bauf Arafat al-Qud al-Husayni. Arafat later shortened it for public consumption, in order to conceal his kinship with the old Nazi collaborator. However, he continued to revere his relative, referring to him privately as “my uncle”.

During the last few months a bitter controversy has raged over which political groups in Europe are acceptable, and which are to be considered beyond the pale for Americans to associate with. Many people have given up hope; they say in effect, “Europe is lost.” Others object to every nationalist party or organization in Europe as “fascist” and “neo-Nazi”, without offering any ideas about who else there might be that will fight vigorously against the Islamization of Europe.

Winter soldier joins the ranks of those Americans who choose to stand with Europe now, and who see the necessity of being inclusive in our alliances. He makes his case with incisive logic and engaging wit. I’ve excerpted the most important parts of his essay below:

let us consider for a moment, just who is going to rise to europe’s defense against the demographic conquest of islam. — will the bureaucrats and advocates of universal sameness who wrote the legislative enactments opening europe up to almost unlimited muslim immigration and occupation, and who have made it illegal for europeans to even speak out against this, or to speak derogatorily about any aspects of islam, will they rise up against their legislative efforts? will they speak out against islamic immigration? will the socialist and communist politicians who find in these immigrants a ready voting block for their perpetuation in office be the first to speak to the defense of europe by islam?

well, we can engage in this series of rhetorical questions until we work our way well over to the right of the political spectrum, before we find any likely candidates to rise to the defense of europe from islam depredation. the key point to be considered in this little exercise, and it seems entirely logical to me, is that we might very well expect european nationalists to be some of the very first people to rise up and vocally demonstrate that they have no liking for the prospect of having islam overrun europe. is there something surprising about this, something so wholly sinister about this situation that i have missed?

more importantly, what is wrong with it?

…is there something inherently wrong or immoral about a frenchman or frenchwoman being proud of being french, and wanting to preserve the attributes of his or her ethnicity and heritage? is there something inherently wrong or immoral about a frenchperson being proud of being a child of the reformation and the enlightenment and a civilization stretching back to greece, something wrong with being proud of being an adherent to western values and not giving a whit about the values of islam? is there something wrong about taking pride in these things, even in a world where we are supposed to accept the worth of the other fellow? and, if we cannot admire our own heritage, then why in the hell do we have to give a fig for the other fellow’s?

what harm can befall us from association with european nationalists, for it might be expected that as these people gain some influence with their fellows, and most likely to their left because there are just not a whole lot of them to their right, that a more centrist flavor, a more centrist hue, might attach itself to their attitudes, and that they might become indeed more acceptable to their fellow citizens and to us.

[…]

might not a prudent appreciation of the issue associated with trying to help european nationals and nationalists suggest the establishment of criteria to determine when it might be alright to link up with them, to offer them help, to work in league to establish policies and postures by which to oppose islamic expansion. it would not be unreasonable to take a detailed look into the history and current status of party platforms and party goals be in order. it would be prudent and cautious to see if the party recognizes the right of the state of israel to exist, to call for or extend complete diplomatic recognition, to spell out its commitments for its country or the european union to come to the aid of israel if israel is attacked. to satisfy the reasonable concerns of persons worried about attitudes such parties or person have with regards to jews and judaism, it would be prudent to examine the pronouncements of parties and persons with regard to the holocaust.

we are smart people. we understand how to perform these functions, as they are part and parcel of our procedural and institutional lives. all of us know the “ins” and “outs” of advise and consent hearing, background checks and the like.

do we not have the ability to formulate a screening litmus to be applied in a logical and procedurally adept way to make these determinations, to come up with some methodology besides ad hoc panic and hysteria?

[…]

surely there must be some process that could be adopted by persons of good will that would be more orderly and procedurally gifted than a lynch mob mentality run roughshod.

if a political party is burdened by a spokesman who is a ring-tailed unrepentant lunatic, but the rest of the party seems reasonable enough, ought we not in the interests of garnering more people to our cause, allow the party some procedure whereby the offending person is excised from the midst?

surely if legitimate concerns are raised about the suitability of parties or persons, appropriate remedial measures can be crafted to address those concerns, and, if possible cure those concerns.

[…]

right now, the muslims, after 60 years of economic bonanza, provided them absolutely free by the west in terms of cash and by the oil companies in terms of infrastructure, still have no industrial or economic or inventive capacity: they are as industrially inept and incompetent as the first day they stepped from camels to cadillacs. the iranians cannot keep their aviation in the air because in sixty years they haven’t even figured out how to make spare parts. to the same obtains for all the arab militaries, as the arabs have never bothered to figure out how to make anything. have you ever seen one item of arab commerce in any store that you have ever shopped in, except something made with a rhino horn. by contrast, the israelis stole the entire plans and blueprints to a french fighter, and had the thing in the air and operational in a short number of years. by contrast, the israelis have one of the most modern and advanced computer industries in the world, and arms manufacturers, and so on.

by what virtue should the muslims succeed to the power and wealth of europe: in centuries, they have not risen above subsistence economies, and we are going to turn europe over to them without a struggle, or helping in a struggle to prevent it, because we cannot get our white patent leather gloves dirty associating with undesirables?

[…]

consider.—

france and england and germany make some of the best fighter planes in the world, and england makes one of the best fighter/attack bombers ever to take flight. france and england and germany make tanks that are state of the art, and though they might not be quite the main battle tank that the m1 abrahams is, they are not that far behind, and in head to head battle they would inflict casualties on the abrahams, and given enough of them, they could perhaps come out ahead in a war of attrition. france and england and germany and spain, given the airbus consortium, also have the capability of making airplanes with extremely heavy lift capabilities. does that mean anything to anybody in terms of the ability to manufacture strategic bombers?

france, germany, england, spain and the rest of the eu are an economic colossus; again not what they might be were they not staggering under the weight of eu social programming and taxes, but a still respectable economy. think, if you will but for a moment, at the technological riches available to islam at the conquest of europe.

and, oh yes, that other little matter.

france and england have the ability to make nukes, and they have the ability to deliver them, either by air, or by nuclear submarine.

does that give anyone pause?

if you, gentle reader, are reading this and you have not stopped to consider this, than you are probably just a bit obtuse.

france and england have about 200-300 warheads apiece, and the ability to launch them, from off of our shores, from off the shores of israel. given the distances involved in a sub-surface launch from the confines of the mediterranean, israeli citizens would not have a chance to finish their breakfast eggs before the arrival of a nuclear strike.

we cannot give this up to the muslims, not without helping those who would fight it.

[…]

we already know that a considerable segment of the social and political spectrum of those countries will not fight. the left will not, as their intellectual blinders prevent them from seeing the problem, and will do so right up until the curved knives lie against their throats. will the t.v. reporters who perpetuated the fraud of al dhura, will they fight islam? will the leftists who lionized yasser arafat, will they fight the muslims? the politicians and social elites will not, because they think they will ride the matter out: after all, they are saying to themselves in the dark corners and recesses of their minds, not all of us will be killed, some of us will survive.

[…]

what is the worst conceivable thing that could happen by consorting with european nationalists? another hitler? give me a break, the chances of another hitler rising out of all of this is so remote as to be ridiculous. it is preposterous. even so, the chances of this are exacerbated by isolating the nationalist parties, offering them no other recourse than extremism: cooperation with american conservatives who will help them fight the jihad also serves to have persons in place, the americans, who will moderate any tendency towards extremism.

[…]

what is the worst thing that could happen if islam took control over europe? then, my friends, the prospect of another holocaust looms not as an unlikely possibility, but as a scenario which takes on the magnitude of an eventuality.

what is the fate of israel if europe comes under the sway of islam?

well, in all probability, israel ceases to exist. if italy and france go islamic, then almost of a certainty turkey has become a fundamentalist islamic state well before, and israel’s fate is sealed. her strategic and tactical situation is absolutely untenable, and the only thing she can do is be destroyed where she sits.

Our Austrian correspondent ESW sends her translation of an article from the website “Die Jüdische” (very roughly translated as “Everything Jewish”) concerning the recent demonstration in Vienna by a Hamas-supporting Austrian Muslim organization.

Austrian Muslim Association sympathizing with racist Hamas

If this had been a demonstration organized by racist and terrorist Hamas, attended by the Liga Kultur [according to its website “an association to further integration and cultural exchange”, in the name of Allah, of course] and the Gesellschaft für Österreichisch-Arabische Beziehungen [Society for Austro-Arab Relations] as well as by anti-imperialist sects sympathizing with Holocaust deniers, this would not have been worth a single comment.

But because the Austrian Muslim Association (IGGiÖ) staged this demonstration — “Keep Gaza Alive” — on Saturday afternoon [January 26, 2008], a comment is in fact called for, especially in light of the fact that it was unsuccessful enough for the mainstream media to completely ignore it.

Why does the IGGiÖ choose to publicize a “peace demonstration” with the slogan “Keep Gaza Alive” when the entire world is witness to thousands of Gazans flooding into Egypt buying everything from food to camels? The IGGiÖ obviously does not care about the people in Gaza; they care more about supporting their like-minded and racist Hamas brothers.

The Austrian Muslim Association pretends moderation, yet it shows its sympathies with the racist group Hamas. IGGiÖ’s leaders are therefore — despite all the denials — either members of the Muslim Brotherhood, or at least close to them. Many Austrians are unaware of the fact that Hamas emerged out of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.- - - - - - - - -It is beyond comprehension that the Austrian Muslim Association, although democratically not legitimized, has been accepted as the sole representative of Muslims in Austria. It is probably no coincidence that internationally wanted fundraisers were put on invitation lists by the IGGiÖ for iftar dinners sponsored by the Austrian President and the mayor of Vienna.

One of the Austrian Muslim Association’s hypocritical claims is “putting pressure on Israel in order to end military attacks on the Gaza strip immediately”. These men are mixing up cause and effect, of course uncoincidentally, because if the Hamas stopped collectively penalizing Israeli civilians in Sderot and other Israeli towns, there would be no Israeli attacks on terrorists in Gaza.

The Social Democrats in Vienna have published a flyer with the following message: “Vienna is safe from religious and social conflicts because they are not dealt with in a violent way, but rather in a democratic, civilized way, by adhering to the rule of law.”

This would be an advantage for the Gazans if the Hamas had not decided to use force and violence to reach obscure goals. If Hamas really were interested in peace and respect for human rights, which is continuously repeated by sympathizers of Hamas within the IGGiÖ, such as Omar Al-Rawi, member of the Social Democrats in the Vienna city council, then Hamas would grant immediate access by the Red Cross to Gilad Shalit and cease their rocket attacks.

After the ominous anti-Islamic attacks by Susanne Winter in Graz, the Austrian Muslim Association and Omar Al-Rawi were celebrated as those who prevented one of the many Middle East conflicts from coming to Austria. Admittedly, Susanne Winter’s remarks made objective criticism against the IGGiÖ very difficult.

However, by attending and promoting the demonstration in favor of the destructive policies of Hamas, the Austrian Muslim Association has proved the opposite, and that they are even prepared to cooperate with discredited anti-imperialistic sects.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Now that the information is publicly available, I can reveal what Dymphna and I have known for a while: Lionheart is currently here in the USA.

He’s in good hands. People are looking after him, and he’s considering the possibility of asking for asylum in this country, since he faces arrest for political reasons (i.e. for “stirring up racial hatred”) if he returns to England. It’s possible that a legal fund will be set up to help him, but I don’t have any definite word on that yet.

There’s an article today about Lionheart, and an interview with him, in Savannah Now:

Paul Ray is homeless…

He’s got a home country, Britain, but if he goes back there he’s facing arrest on suspicion of an offense dubbed “Stir up Racial Hatred by displaying written material” on his blog lionheartuk.blogspot.com. He could get seven years in prison just for stating his views.

They’ve got no First Amendment in Britain. So the 31-year-old is in the United States contemplating a bid for asylum after being run out of his home of Luton. He was here when he first found out about the charge.

For more than a year he’s been documenting what he alleges is drug dealing by Muslim immigrants in Luton. He’s dropped dimes on these dealers and they’ve in turn threatened his life.

I met him at last week’s blogging unconference. To me he straddles that line dividing legitimate criticism of a minority group and unreasonable vilification. He’s in that gray area where we find many in the United States who decry illegal immigrants.

Our expatriate Dutch correspondent H. Numan sends a translation of an article from yesterday’s De Telegraaf, followed by his commentary.

“Possibly several days of disturbances after Koran movie”

Hilversum — The Ministry of the Interior is seriously considering the possibility of widespread public disturbances lasting several days as a consequence of the Koran movie produced by Geert Wilders. The ministry therefore issued a letter to the municipalities, police, fire, and health departments, pointing to the measures they may have to take.

If long-term deployment leads to capacity problems in their region, the authorities can apply for support from the army or the Marechaussee [Royal Military Constabulary].

Also, all leaves of emergency services employees and volunteers can be canceled, and it might be a consideration to temporarily halt courses, exercises and training, as well as other events.

This and more is written in a letter issued by the Country Operational Coordination Center (LOCC), which was obtained by the news program “Een Vandaag”.

Dick Schoof, Director-general for security of the Department for the Interior, pointed out that in the program “quite often these kinds of letters” are sent, amongst other examples, during the European Football championships, or when a flood is imminent. “We have to prepare for the worst. Without saying that the worst automatically will happen”, according to Mr. Schoof.

The worst possible case after showing this movie, according to Mr. Schoof, is major unrest in society, where polarization and radicalizing will lead to severe disturbances. The top civil servant stated that the government can better prepare itself in privacy, and found the leaking of this letter “annoying”.

November last year the Secretary for the Interior, Guusje ter Horst first issued a letter regarding the Koran movie. She asked all mayors to be on “extra alert” for civil unrest and disturbances rising between population groups because of the movie made by Wilders.

The PVV Leader wants to translate into visual terms his opinion that the Koran is a fascistic book that will lead to violence.

One almost cannot believe his eyes. This is sowing panic in capital letters! Not to mention the ultimate evidence the government is without any idea at all how to handle this — possible! — situation. And above all vilifying Mr. Geert Wilders in the worst possible way.

Who exactly is going to riot? Dutch pensioners? The National Windmill Society? The average citizen with a job, who, therefore, has to apply for a leave of absence? Not bloody likely. Muslims have issued notice in no uncertain words that they will create havoc if Wilders has the guts to produce this movie.

I am certain the government will not act at all “so as not to worsen the situation”. They did so repeatedly during the New Year riots, and just before that in Slotervaart. So, why the brave talk of calling in the army? Well, they are clever enough to understand that sooner or later the Dutch will fight back. Not because they want to, but because they have to. It’s one thing to see your car burned, but quite another to see hoodlums preparing to torch your house, plunder your shop or rape your kids.

That is the moment the army will respond, and not a moment before.

It’s outrageous how the government has been behaving the last couple of months. Or, more accurately: since they were elected. During the first one hundred days the government went on a fact-finding mission. De facto, there was no government! No problem at all, everything went smooth as clockwork. The problems started when the government got back from their hundred-day holiday and got to work.

They began by breaking their solemn promises to their constituents: the army will remain in Afghanistan, and the EU constitution was accepted without approval of parliament. Then they leaked information that Wilders was creating a movie, and followed by trying to get him banned from the country, without anybody uttering a word!

Last Saturday the Swedish newspaper Expressen published an article alleging that one or more members of the anti-immigration party Sverigedemokraterna (the Sweden Democrats) had neo-Nazi affiliations, despite the party’s claim to be free of Nazi influences. The source of information for the story was the extremist left-wing group Expo, whose co-founder, as Fjordman has noted on several occasions, called for genocide of all whites and the destruction of Western civilization.

A reader summarized the Expressen piece in an email to us:

The newspaper article revealed, perhaps unintentionally, that Expo had used information from private bank accounts to snear opponents. This is illegal, even in Sweden, for everybody except for the Security Services, and even they need a court order to access this sort of information. If this story is correct, it resembles Gestapo or Stasi methods, and could potentially have very serious consequences. Nonetheless, opponents of SD outside of Sweden use Expo as their primary source regarding Swedish politics.

In effect, Expressen and Expo were saying, “Aha! Those Sweden Democrats are supporting Nazi organizations: their phone records and money transfer records show this.”

Kurt Lundgren, one of the most prominent Swedish bloggers, then pointed out the amazing fact that Expo have access to people’s phone and money transfer records, and that not even the police have such powers without a court ruling.

Yes indeed, an organization whose primary mission is to point a finger and cry “Nazi!” at any opponent who opposes Multiculturalism now uses methods borrowed from the Gestapo and the Stasi. Life is full of little ironies.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Ted Ekeroth — who attended the Counterjihad Summit in Brussels last October, and is Sverigedemokraterna’s treasurer in Lund — sent the following information via email about the incident:- - - - - - - - -

I don’t know these guys. They are some pretty well unknown persons. Unfortunately it seems that they lied in their vandelsförsäkran, which is a form you fill out when joining the party, in which you have to promise that you have never been part of any undemocratic, racist, or Nazi movement, that you have no criminal record, and so on.

However, we have to trust what people say since we cannot investigate them all.

In this case it indeed seems like one person has given money to a Nazi group here in Sweden. That person is going to be expelled from the party during the next board meeting.

I don’t know anything more than this for now, since the persons in question are unknown to me (and to most people in the party).

Our next board meeting is on February 9th. There is no public statement yet, but there will be soon.

It looks very bad, of course, but there is no real “danger” in this. There were two unimportant small-time idiots somewhere in Sweden, who obviously lied in their assurance that they do not mix with racists or Nazis…

It’s hard to stop those nuts, unfortunately.

Not long afterwards, Sverigedemokraterna issued a statement, which our Swedish correspondent HL has kindly translated (the original Swedish version is below the English translation):

Concerning information given in connection with the Jimmie Åkesson interview on 24 January 2008:

The executive committee of the Sweden Democrats has opened an investigation into the cases in question, and at the party’s board meeting on 9 February recommendations for potential measures will be issued for each individual case. VU has still not succeeded in getting the information confirmed in all cases:

The information for Jan Kassberg, Gävle, has been confirmed, and VU has because of this reason decided to recommend to the board that the issue of expulsion is raised at the PS meeting on 9 February.

Peter Söderholm is said to have left the party before the 2006 election, according to the Gävleborg district. If that is the case no measures will be taken.

Concerning Göran Anders Lagrot, Gothenburg, the information has not yet been confirmed. If the information is correct the VU will recommend that the board make another point of expulsion at the PS meeting on 9 February.

Other cases will be further investigated via the party district concerned.

So, to summarize this whole non-story: a couple of people lied on their party applications, and as a result, after Sverigademokraterna’s due process runs its course, they will be expelled from the party.

If Sverigademokraterna are “Nazis”, they’re not very good at it.

Expo is determined to destroy SD by any and all means necessary. Their dishonest smear techniques, their disregard for the law, and their support for the violent suppression of politically incorrect opponents make it difficult to distinguish them from the “fascists” they supposedly revile.

Two Muslim women have successfully sued the authorities in Gothenburg, Sweden because it required them to wear the same clothing as other parents who brought their children to swim at the municipal pool.

Instead of the required T-shirt and shorts as safety attire for adults attending children while near the water, these parents demanded the right to come to the pool while wearing veils and long pants and long-sleeved T-shirts. In other words, they have the “right” to wear just the kind of clothes that would hamper anyone who had to jump into the pool to grab a kid who was in over his head and panicky:

The Court of Appeal for western Sweden found the City of Gothenburg guilty of ethnic discrimination and ordered the authorities to pay the women 20,000 kronor ($3,000) each in damages.

[…]

In its judgment, the court said that the actions of the swimming pool lifeguards, who insisted that the women should change into tee-shirts, could be deemed discriminatory even if this had not been their intention.

The nature of Sweden’s discrimination laws mean that it was up to the City of Gothenburg to prove that the request for the women to remove some of their clothing had nothing to do with their religion.

“In the view of the Court of Appeal, the City of Gothenburg did not succeed in doing this,” the court said in a statement.

In March last year, Gothenburg District Court ruled that the municipal pool had not discriminated against the women.

One is led to ask how any municipality is able to anticipate ahead of time the reckless behavior of its citizens so that laws can be in place beforehand to prevent questionable or potentially reckless behavior.

This whole episode reminds me of the story the Baron tells about a local mom who was going away for a few days and left her older teenagers in charge. While she was gone, they (needless to say) had a party and someone's careless cigarette use resulted in a bad fire. The Baron said, "I'll bet she gave them plenty of rules. She just forgot to say, "and while I'm gone don't burn the house down."

The Court of Appeal obviously does not accept the notion of “The Reasonable Man Person”:

The “reasonable person” is a hypothetical individual who is intended to represent a sort of “average” citizen. The ability of this hypothetical individual to understand matters is consulted in the process of making decisions of law. The question, “How would a reasonable person act under the same or similar circumstances” performs a critical role in legal reasoning in areas such as negligence and contract law.

And had one of the children of these mothers come to harm in the swimming pool do you think they would also be suing the same authorities?

Practitioners of fundamentalist religions have no room in their doctrine for reason, or for free will, either. That kind of thinking is not confined to Islam…and it doesn’t matter, really, unless you demand to be the exception to reasonable behavior and thereby potentially place your child in harm’s way.

For example, in this country (and I am sure in many others), a parent whose religious beliefs interfered with their child’s health - e.g., a doctrine that didn’t permit blood transfusions for a hemophiliac child - would be over-ruled by the courts. I have seen doctors go to court to get emergency legal permission to give responsible care to children who have come into the hospital for treatment.

The demands of the parents were over-ruled by the courts in the cases I saw. And sometimes the parents were secretly grateful. One woman admitted to me that it was a relief to have her child taken care of this way since her religious doctrine prevented her from acting as she really wanted to. Dogma can be a very powerful peer pressure; sometimes its tenets transcend the facts on the ground.

Which makes me wonder: were these women acting of their own free will, or was the legal case the demand of watchful husbands? Left to their own devices would the women have appeared at the pool and changed in the locker rooms into shorts and T-shirt?

My aunt, a Franciscan nun, was very happy to see those old, hot and heavy habits made optional with the advent of Vatican II. Back in the old days, before such a thing would ever have been considered, she was the principal of a school in Tybee Beach (Georgia). I would go to visit her sometimes in the long summer vacations. To my astonishment, in the cool of the early evening, she and the other nuns would change into bathing suits, grab towels and head to the beach (a block or so away). I was amazed: nuns had legs!

Looking at the other news in the Local, Sweden is full of social problems and quandaries brought on by the socialist environment:- - - - - - - - -More People, Especially Women, Attempt Suicide...of course there is no breakdown by race. That’s a no-no. Instead, much hand-wringing for the press:

“This is a terrible development, and we have no scientific studies that explain why, although the social climate is tougher these days,” Professor Britta Alin Åkerman at the Karolinska Institute’s Institution for Suicide Prevention told Svenska Dagbladet.

This may be a matter of “tough times” for those caught in the p.c. wringer. They are obliged to keep silence about the obvious because in the EUSSR statistics can be deemed “racist” if they don’t line up with the current doctrine.

Unless a scientist is permitted to look at all the data, what she’s doing isn’t really science.

Sweden blocked Saturday European Union plans to stop divorcing couples from fighting over which EU court to legally settle their separation in.

EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini said it was “mainly Sweden opposing” the move, out of concern that the laws of other nations would not provide the same protection to the most vulnerable partners in a divorce.

[…]

“Now there is what we call unfortunately this growing phenomenon of foreign shopping. People can choose the applicable law and the judge,” Frattini told reporters in Slovenia after talks between EU justice ministers.

“This is, frankly speaking, a source of legal uncertainty,” he said.

Sweden endeavours to expedite divorces as quickly as possible, while the process can take far longer in other nations, with some demanding a period of separation before any court divorce can begin.

Malta does not recognize the right to divorce at all.

Complications can also arise in marriages between homosexuals, which are only recognized in some of the 27 EU nations.

Complications?? In a collective?? Nah…No individual state cultural customs here; of course not. We are one big happy Union. These aren’t bugs in the Constitution, folks, they’re features…which we plan to outlaw.

Nordman, an ethnopop duo and regular in the Melodifestivalen competition, plans the witch-burning as part of its set in the Karlskrona heats on March 1st. In the act, a woman will play a witch being forced onto a fire and burned alive.

A 17-year old girl has died from injuries sustained following a fall from her fourth floor apartment in the Småland town of Eksjö.

The girl was found on the ground by her parents outside the apartment building around eleven o’clock Sunday morning. They had gone to look for her when she didn’t show up for work.

Police are not sure if the girl fell, jumped, or was pushed.

“There is no obvious suspicion of foul play at this time, although we are trying to build a picture of what has happened by talking to relatives and neighbors,” said Jonsson.

Don’t you wonder what her ethnicity is?

This brings us full circle back to the story about the mystifying increase in “suicides” among women in Sweden… perplexing statistics indeed, especially if you keep your politically correct blinders on at all times, even in the shower. Never can tell what you might glimpse otherwise.

Finally, there is this bit of black humor which actually has a speck of brutal truth:

Now who could those masked men have been? And what Swede would ever carry a gun??

There’s a hint in the story (see if you can find Waldo here):

The bank had not yet opened for business when the thieves drove a car through the bank’s main entrance.

Approximately twenty employees were present at the time, but none were injured.

One member of the management team was in the bank at the time.

“I heard a crashing sound and saw a car drive straight through the main doors. I understood that it wasn’t just a regular customer and rushed over to the police station, which is about ten metres away from here,” he told TT.

One witness was on her way to have her hair cut when she saw the robbers leaving the bank.

“I saw four masked robbers running out of the bank and screaming at each other. All of them were carrying sub-machine guns and some of them were speaking in broken Swedish.

“They threatened people who were standing in the square, saying: ‘Stand back or we’ll shoot’. I got the feeling they wouldn’t hesitate to start shooting,” she told TT.

What do you want to bet they were American tourists from Texas who'd run out of spending money. Vacations are so expensive.

The newspaper Expressen in Sweden recently published an article claiming that two members of the Sweden Democrats party have ties to neo-Nazi organizations. First of all: If these people really do have neo-Nazi connections, they do not belong in a civilized party and should in my view be expelled immediately. The SD will never be taken seriously if they have people like this in their party and they do not deserve to.

That is, however, not the only issue at stake here. The source quoted in this article is the organization Expo. Expo has released a warning against the rise of “organized Islamophobia.” A number of blogs with content that “should probably be banned” were mentioned, among them Gates of Vienna and Little Green Footballs. Two of the important Scandinavian blogs that were labelled “Islamophobes” were Snaphanen and Kurt Lundgren. As both of them have pointed out, according to the article it looks like Expo had access to lists of telephone conversations and bank account information about transactions made by a number of private citizens. If this is correct — and so far I know no more than what this article tells me — several readers suggest that this could be illegal political surveillance of free citizens by a private (but state-sponsored) organization.

Did Expressen journalist David Baas ask Expo how they obtained this information? And if the methods employed were indeed problematic, how many peaceful, private citizens have Expo also been checking in order to make this discovery? The article by Baas mentions the left-wing extremist organization Antifascistisk Aktion (AFA), which has for years and with near impunity been physically and verbally attacking any person deemed to be critical of Sweden’s insane immigration policies. Is the Expressen newspaper going to put the violent organization AFA under similar scrutiny? Can they, for instance, find out why members of AFA in 2007 were allowed to walk next to senior members of the Swedish cabinet, the Swedish media and the Swedish law enforcement despite the fact that AFA members had probably attacked the property of a judge only days before? How come AFA can openly brag about their violent, extra-legal activities for years without being stopped by the authorities? Is it possible that the political elites find them to be a useful tool against those criticizing mass immigration?

As Bruce Bawer writes in While Sweden Slept: “Sweden Democrats have been the targets of events that recall China’s Cultural Revolution. Staged ‘people’s protests’ by members of the ‘youth divisions’ of other parties have led to the firing of Sweden Democrats from their jobs. A few weeks ago, a junior diplomat was dismissed when it became known that he was a member of the party and had criticized his country’s immigration policy. On several occasions, thugs loyal to the ruling parties have broken up SD meetings and beaten up party leaders.”

Sweden has absolutely no public debate about immigration, yet native citizens are subject to an unprecedented wave of violence. In the country’s third largest city, Malmö, which could soon have a Muslim majority, gangs of immigrant thugs brag about “waging a war” against indigenous white Swedes, according to interviews conducted by sociologist Petra Åkesson. Is it “dangerous Islamophobia” by the Swedes in Malmö if they resist continued Muslim immigration? How come Expo displays such concern for Islamophobia and so little for the racism faced every single day by the indigenous people of their own country?

One of the co-founders of Expo, Tobias Hübinette, wrote in 1996: “To feel and even think that the white race is inferior in every conceivable way is natural with regards to its history and current actions. Let the Western countries of the white race perish in blood and suffering. Long live the multicultural, racially mixed and classless ecological society! Long live anarchy!”

According to his own CV, Tobias Hübinette worked for Expo until at least 1997. In other words, he continued doing research for this “anti-racist” organization after having publicly advocated the extermination of the white race and the violent destruction of an entire civilization. During this time period he did research about “racists”. He has openly defended the use of violence for political reasons, even against children and the elderly, and has been convicted of violence. Hübinette has continued promoting “Multiculturalism,” even received awards, and is currently working for the The Multicultural Centre of Botkyrka, Sweden.

The founder and editor of Expo magazine from 1995 until his death in November 2004, Stieg Larsson, worked with Hübinette for years, but was apparently never negatively affected by this collaboration with a person calling for genocide against his people. Larsson has been cited as a credible source regarding the extreme Right, and Expo’s material has been reprinted by leading the newspapers Expressen and Aftonbladet. Larsson left behind three unpublished thrillers, which have proceeded to become major bestsellers in Sweden after his death.

What kind of connections does Expo have with Hübinette today? Why was he apparently allowed to continue his work there after having called for the mass murder of hundreds of millions of people? The Expo website reveals a list of a dozen employees. Who pays these people? What kind of relationship does Expo have with the extremist organization AFA? Is Expo aware of the fact that AFA has been attacking “Islamophobes” for years, and that by branding a person such as Lundgren an “Islamophobe,” they are thus indirectly setting him up for an attack? What has Expo done during the past dozen years to discourage or prevent AFA members from attacking people who have been charged with or convicted of no crime?

After they wrote about “The new face of Islamophobia,” Expo’s Daniel Poohl stated that it’s “not undemocratic” to deny the Sweden Democrats access to political influence. But who is Mr. Poohl, who has been elected to represent nobody, to decide how much free speech other citizens should have in a supposedly free country? Who died and made Expo God?- - - - - - - - -Moreover, most of the political violence in Europe, both verbal and physical, comes from Muslims and their supporters on the Left. The first political murders in the Netherlands for centuries were committed by a Muslim in the case of Theo van Gogh and a Leftist supporter of Muslims in the case of Pim Fortuyn. Some members of the Western Left support the suppression of free speech and even the use of street violence against rivals. Is Expo going to write about this worrisome trend, too?

As we speak, Muslims are driving Christians out of the birthplace of Jesus Christ, Bethlehem, but Western media choose to blame this on the Jewish state of Israel, a fellow victim of Jihad. The Christian population has dwindled from more than 85 per cent in 1948 to 12 per cent of its inhabitants in 2006. The few remaining non-Muslim communities in the Middle East are being systematically eradicated. As Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch writes in his book Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t, “Christian communities throughout the Middle East that date back to the dawn of Christianity are decreasing so much that they are on the verge of disappearing from the area altogether.” Overall, the Middle Eastern Christian population has dropped from 20 percent in 1900 to less than 2 percent today, and is declining by the day. Why does Expo hardly write a single word about this global Muslim Christianophobia and infidelophobia when they are so concerned about Islamophobia?

It’s good that Expo worries about political parties with ties to Nazi and Fascist movements. Are they also going to mention that arguably the one party with the closest historical ties to Fascist and Nazi regimes is the Social Democratic Party, the dominant party in Sweden for the past 80 years?

Marcos Cantera Carlomagno in 1995 published a PhD thesis at Lund University describing a series of letters sent by Per Albin Hansson, leader of the Social Democrats who was Prime Minister between 1932 and 1946 and worked for the establishment of “Folkhemmet,” the People’s Home. Hansson was a dear pen pal with Italy’s Fascist leader Mussolini and praised the corporate, Fascist system where each individual was intimately tied to and subordinate to the state. Hansson was positively disposed to Fascism and saw the welfare state as a related concept. Carlomagno’s work was totally ignored by the entire media establishment in Sweden when it appeared in the 1990s. Perhaps Expo could republish it now?

In the book The New Totalitarians, the British historian Roland Huntford pointed out that Socialist professor Gunnar Myrdal and his wife Alva, both highly influential ideologists in developing the Swedish welfare state model, had intimate connections with the German academic world during the Nazi age. Gunnar Myrdal served as both a member of parliament and later as a government minister for the Social Democrats during this period.

According to Huntford: “The professor was then a Nazi sympathizer, publicly describing Nazism as the movement of youth and the movement of the future. In Myrdal’s defence, it must be pointed out that, whatever his other propensities, Hitler did have advanced ideas on social welfare, and that the social ideology of the German Nazis and the Swedish Social Democrats had much in common. Until the mid 1930s, Nazism had considerable attractions for those who favoured a benevolent and authoritarian state.”

Social Democratic connections with violent and politically repressive movements are not a thing of the past. As journalist Salam Karam told Expressen: “For the Muslim Brotherhood, Sweden is in many ways an ideal country, [and it] shares the ideals of the Social Democrats in their view of the welfare society. Leading figures in Muslim congregations are also active within the Social Democratic [Party], and have very good relations with Sweden’s Christian Social Democrats — Broderskapsrörelsen. The Social Democrats have, in turn, shown a tendency to shy away from the fact that there is extremism in some of our mosques. This has given the Brotherhood the freedom to force its ideology upon [the mosque’s worshippers].”

According to a post in 2007 from the website of Broderskapsrörelsen (“The Brotherhood”), the Swedish Social Democratic Party has decided to establish a formal network for cooperation with Muslims: “This is a historic decision for the Brotherhood,” says leader Peter Weiderud. “I’m incredibly happy that a unanimous congress now leaves the door open for Muslims and others to work together with us in the Brotherhood; this is going to enrich us all and help the [Social Democratic] Party to better influence the Swedish society.”

As the writer Nima Sanandaji states, the Social Democrat Ola Johansson has even referred to the book Social Justice in Islam by the Islamic ideologue Sayyid Qutb as proof that the social democratic ideology could find common ground with Islamic ideas. Qutb was a leading ideologue from the Muslim Brotherhood, and his writings have inspired numerous Jihadist movements across the world, including terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

The Muslim Brotherhood, regarded as the largest Islamic movement in the world, was founded by Hassan al-Banna in 1928, inspired by contemporary Fascists and Nazis in addition to Islamic texts. According to journalist Helle Merete Brix, Muhammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, aided by Saudi Arabia, is pumping large amounts of petrodollars into various organizations at the forefront of the Islamization of Europe, such as the European Council for Fatwa and Research headed by the highly influential Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a follower of Hassan al-Banna during his youth and the MB’s spiritual leader today. Qaradawi has publicly boasted that “Islam will return to Europe as a conqueror.”

Lorenzo Vidino writes about “The Muslim Brotherhood’s Conquest of Europe.” According to him, “Since the early 1960s, Muslim Brotherhood members and sympathizers have moved to Europe and slowly but steadily established a wide and well-organized network of mosques, charities, and Islamic organizations.” The irony is that “Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna dreamed of spreading Islamism throughout Egypt and the Muslim world. He would never have dreamed that his vision might also become a reality in Europe.”

The current leader of the MB, Mohammad Mahdi Akef, has called on its members to serve its global agenda, declaring “I have complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America.” On its English website, the Brotherhood professes moderation and praises Multiculturalism as a way to spread Islam. However, on their Arabic website, Akef in February 2007 reassured his followers that “the Jihad will lead to smashing Western civilization and replacing it with Islam which will dominate the world.” In the event that Muslims cannot achieve this goal in the near future, “Muslims are obliged to continue the Jihad that will cause the collapse of Western civilization and the ascendance of the Muslim civilization on its ruins.”

The former Muslim Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo, author of the book “Global Jihad,” warns that the Islamization going on in European cities is not happening by chance. It “is the result of a careful and deliberate strategy by certain Muslim leaders which was planned in 1980 when the Islamic Council of Europe published a book called Muslim Communities in Non-Muslim States.” The instructions told Muslims to get together into viable communities, set up mosques, community centres and Islamic schools. To resist assimilation, they must group themselves geographically in areas of high Muslim concentration. According to Sookhdeo, their ultimate goal is Islamic rule in Europe.

Patrick Poole describes how discussion of a document called “The Project” so far has been limited to the top-secret world of Western intelligence communities. Only through the work of an intrepid Swiss journalist, Sylvain Besson, has information regarding The Project finally been made public. It was found in a raid of a luxurious villa in Campione, Switzerland on November 7, 2001. The target of the raid was Youssef Nada, who has had active association with the Muslim Brotherhood for more than 50 years.

Included in the documents seized was a 14-page plan written in Arabic and dated December 1, 1982, which outlined a 12-point strategy to “establish an Islamic government on earth” — identified as The Project. According to testimony given to Swiss authorities by Nada, the unsigned document was prepared by “Islamic researchers.” It represents a flexible, multi-phased, long-term approach to the “cultural invasion” of the West.

Some of its recommendations include:

Using deception to mask the intended goals of Islamic actions

Building extensive social networks of schools, hospitals and charitable organizations

Involving ideologically committed Muslims in institutions on all levels in the West, including government, NGOs, private organizations

Instrumentally using existing Western institutions until they can be put into service of Islam

Instituting alliances with Western “progressive” organizations that share similar goals.

As Patrick Poole says, “What is startling is how effectively the Islamist plan for conquest outlined in The Project has been implemented by Muslims in the West for more than two decades.”

Included in this was the powerful Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leader. Sylvain Besson and Scott Burgess note the striking similarities between Qaradawi’s publication, “Priorities of the Islamic Movement in the Coming Phase” and The Project. Qaradawi is backed by Saudi money and founded the major English-language website IslamOnline, which serves as an outlet for his teachings. He is also leader of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, which spreads its rulings on sharia-related matters to mosques across Europe. He is based in Qatar, home to the influential Arabic satellite TV channel Al Jazeera, where he runs the popular program “Sharia and Life.” The intellectual Dr. Khaled Shawkat warns that Al Jazeera “has been hijacked” by the MB “to the extent that three or four Muslim Brotherhood members sometimes appear on a single news program.”

Yusuf al-Qaradawi was an important figure during the Muhammad cartoons riots in 2006. According to Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen, “Clearly, the riots in Denmark and throughout the world were not spontaneous, but planned and organized well in advance by Islamist organizations that support the MB, and with funding mostly from Saudi Arabia.” The purpose was to impose sharia-style restrictions on free speech on Western nations.

Ehrenfeld and Lappen state that the Muslim Brotherhood and its offspring organizations employ the Flexibility Strategy: “This strategy calls for a minority group of Muslims to use all ‘legal’ means to infiltrate majority-dominated, non-Muslim secular and religious institutions, starting with its universities. As a result, ‘Islamized’ Muslim and non-Muslim university graduates enter the nation’s workforce, including its government and civil service sectors, where they are poised to subvert law enforcement agencies, intelligence communities, military branches, foreign services, and financial institutions.”

Tariq Ramadan, the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, has stated that in the 21st century, “The West will begin its new decline, and the Arab-Islamic world its renewal” and ascent to seven centuries of world domination. According to the writer Kirsten Sarauw, last year in Vienna a conference was held where prominent Muslim delegates formulated a common strategic vision about a Europe dominated by Islam. At the event Mustafa Ceric, Grand Mufti of Bosnia, envisioned an “upcoming Islamic era.”

The conference was in agreement about the first and foremost goal, namely the introduction of religious Islamic jurisprudence (sharia) in Europe “in the beginning at least as a parallel system alongside national laws in European states.” As to the real meaning of sharia (which is an apartheid system relegating non-Muslims to oppression and secondary status in their own country) they all agreed to avoid publicity as far as possible. According to Sarauw, Ramadan proclaimed that the real intentions of this plan must be concealed from the general public as long as possible. Sarauw labels this “a declaration of war against the peoples of Europe.”

Douglas Farah writes about the largely successful efforts by Islamic groups in the West to buy large amounts of real estate. Some groups are signing agreements to guarantee that they will only sell the land to Muslims. The Muslim Brotherhood, particularly, is active in investments in properties and businesses across Europe, laying the groundwork for a future network that will be able to react rapidly and with flexibility in case of an attempted crackdown on their financial structure. Most of the money comes from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

According to Farah, the governments of Europe and the United States continue to allow these groups to flourish and seek for the “moderate” elements that can be embraced as a counter-balance to the “radical” elements: “We do not have a plan. They do. History shows that those that plan, anticipate and have a coherent strategy usually win. We are not winning.”

As we can see, the indigenous people of an entire continent, Europe, are being subject to an internationally organized attempt to subdue their countries and destroy their culture. What’s worse is that many of their own leaders are helping in this attempt by gradually enlarging the European Union, with free movement of people across borders, to include the Middle East and North Africa. This constitutes nothing less than one of the worst betrayals in the history of European civilization, yet the people who resist are vilified by the media.

The Christian Social Democrat Helle Klein, the then political editor of Sweden’s largest newspaper Aftonbladet, during a demonstration against Islamophobia, racism and discrimination in December 2006 in Stockholm stood in front of a banner which read “A Sweden for all — Stop the Nazi violence,” warning against Islamophobia in the media. So, Islamophobia is associated with “Nazism.” Klein has repeatedly voiced sympathy for terrorist organization Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is a Fascist organization openly calling for mass murder of Jews. The irony of warning against “Nazi violence” while showing sympathy for an organization that wants to finish what the Nazis started apparently doesn’t strike Ms. Klein.

Maybe it’s time the public finally got to know the full story about the alleged connections between Social Democrats and the Muslim Brotherhood. Is it true that people representing the Christian Social Democrats have connections to people associated with the MB? And if it is, how come people from the Social Democratic Party can associate with an organization whose stated goal is the destruction of Western civilization, while indigenous Swedes who resist being turned into a persecuted minority in their own country are being labelled “Islamophobes and racists” by organizations supported by the Social Democrats? By which standard is that acceptable?

This is the fourth in a series of information war-gaming posts. The content of each post in the series will be determined by the discussion that follows the previous post.

Links to the earlier articles in this series are listed at the bottom of this post.

The sixth misconception about social change is that in order to bring it about one must obtain power. This assumes, first, that what I have called negative power is a neutral force, and second, that social change originates in power centers. Both of these assumptions are false.

The worst evils of our political system come from the centralization of power, irrespective of who holds it. It is the most naïve kind of hero-villain thinking to imagine that a new face will change a system. The major organizations in our society have seen dozens of incumbents pass through their top positions without greatly affecting the oppressiveness of their fundamental patterning.

In the most recent essay of this series I addressed the difference between flat and hierarchically-organized information systems. I chose to highlight the advantages of a flat (or distributed) network because the flat model offers the only possibility for effective resistance to the Great Jihad, which has thus far proved so notably successful against us in the current information war.

None of my arguments is intended to rule out hierarchical networks as a useful component in information warfare. Once a new paradigm has emerged within a distributed network, not only will the existing hierarchically-organized systems be altered from the bottom up, but new ones may arise to perform functions of which we are as yet only barely aware.

In this essay I’ll be looking further into the nature of flat networks and distributed information systems. I’ll return to hierarchical systems in future posts.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The video embedded below was made by Bill Cullison, and shows the formations generated by an enormous flock of starlings in the sky over San Rafael, California.

Take the time to watch the whole thing. It is an amazing and beautiful reminder of Hamlet’s assertion that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.

The behavior of these birds en masse is, in a mathematical sense, chaotic — that is, it obeys the laws of cause and effect and is not random, but it is inherently unpredictable. We can observe it and chart it, but we cannot possibly comprehend it in any meaningful way.

And yet there is no intricate master plan which these starlings are carrying out. The coherent formations and movements we see are the product of a set of simple neural instructions implemented simultaneously in thousands of bird-brains.

The starlings are a vivid demonstration of a distributed information network in action.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

How does such complex and coordinated behavior emerge from the simultaneous actions of such minimally-programmed brains?- - - - - - - - -Until the advent of high-speed digital computing, the mathematical modeling of these flocks was not possible. But in the last thirty years the behavior of birds and other creatures that form flocks has been successfully simulated. In order for the computer algorithm to mimic avian behavior realistically, each “creature” must have the same set of programmed instructions. It also must be able to “see” only its nearest neighbors; that is, no bird in the flock can view the whole flock when adjusting the speed and direction of its flight.

One of the masters in this field is the software developer Craig W. Reynolds. He pioneered and perfected a model of flocking behavior by creating a computer program he calls “boids”. Mr. Reynolds employed three basic steering behaviors for his digital creatures:

Separation:

steer to avoid crowding local flockmates

Alignment:

steer towards the average heading of local flockmates

Cohesion:

steer to move toward the average position of local flockmates

These instructions make intuitive sense, and a jet fighter pilot is surely using his own version of these algorithms to maintain position within a formation.

The resulting collective behavior of the boids effectively simulates flocks of birds or schools of fish. Mr. Reynolds explains the reasoning behind his algorithm:

Each boid has direct access to the whole scene’s geometric description, but flocking requires that it reacts only to flockmates within a certain small neighborhood around itself. The neighborhood is characterized by a distance (measured from the center of the boid) and an angle, measured from the boid’s direction of flight. Flockmates outside this local neighborhood are ignored. The neighborhood could be considered a model of limited perception (as by fish in murky water) but it is probably more correct to think of it as defining the region in which flockmates influence a boid’s steering.

[…]

In the boids model… interaction between simple behaviors of individuals produce complex yet organized group behavior. The component behaviors are inherently nonlinear, so mixing them gives the emergent group dynamics a chaotic aspect. At the same time, the negative feedback provided by the behavioral controllers tends to keep the group dynamics ordered. The result is life-like group behavior.

A significant property of life-like behavior is unpredictability over moderate time scales.

Members of a distributed network have a limited neighborhood of perception. It’s not necessary for any of them to have the overall picture for the system to function effectively. In fact, if enough individuals within the system were to react to the overall picture instead of to their local neighborhoods, the network would cease to be a distributed one, and its collective behavior would disintegrate. It’s possible that it would subsequently reform into a hierarchical network — those having the overall view of the system would take their places near the top of the hierarchy.

A hierarchical network is powerful, but it is also slow and unwieldy. In order to have a rapid response time and maximum flexibility, those of us who act within a distributed network must learn to live with unpredictability.

It’s only human to want to see the big picture, and to control it. But we need to be willing to give up this idea if we are ever to be successful in the information war.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

So how does the analogy of the boids apply to our present circumstances?

The same three behavioral traits — separation, alignment, and cohesion — can be generalized for the elements of any distributed network. No particular person in the Counterjihad will formulate these behaviors — when successful steering rules appear, they will be replicated and spread spontaneously throughout the system.

The process of replication occurs when a node in the network — a human being sitting at a computer, just like you or me — reads a set of premises and conclusions that make sense, that resonate deeply within his psyche. The information is then internalized and passed on to other nodes by any available means.

When enough individual nodes are operating with the same instructional base, i.e. using similar steering behaviors, the entire flock will become a coherent formation and begin to act effectively. None of us will understand it all, yet it will work.

When I churn out ideas and display them here, I’m just repeating things I’ve picked up in other places. My material may be synthesized and reorganized idiosyncratically, but it’s not new. If what I say makes sense to you, then you in turn will spread it further within the network.

None of the ideas is original, and no one has any control. These are tough principles to accept, but necessary ones.

When this process matures, the behavior of the entire network will change. I call this phenomenon “distributed emergence”.

The twin role played by the skin - protection from excessive UV radiation and absorption of enough sunlight to trigger the production of vitamin D - means that people living in the lower latitudes, close to the Equator, with intense UV radiation, have developed darker skin to protect them from the damaging effects of UV radiation. In contrast, those living in the higher latitudes, closer to the Poles, have developed fair skin to maximize vitamin D production.

Cartographer: Emmanuelle Bournay

This map is put out by the UNEP/GRID-Arendal Maps and Graphics library.

Go here for more maps. Type your theme in the search window on the left sidebar. For example, there is an interesting one about where all the trash goes. No wonder that cat food from China isn’t safe.

Needless to say, maps from the UN are usually accompanied by dire warnings regarding the future. This one of skin color, however, is simply interesting information.

Our Czech correspondent Lugundum offers another essay about the effects of mass immigration in the West.

Greed, Immigration, and the Economy of Povertyby Lugundum

In my previous contribution I took on the issue of mass immigration and the economic reasons behind it. But some readers doubted my message and charged me with pandering to socialism. That accusation, however, bears some merit in the whole issue and, for what is it worth, let us take a closer look at it.

When asserting that the socialism charge is relevant to the immigration debate I am talking particularly about collectivist aspect of economically driven immigration. For politicians, entrepreneurs, and various CEOs we are no longer human beings but an anonymous collective, a mass. In our ailing societies all social constructs like family, local community, or nation have been marginalized and weakened by socialists and their various off-spring. What is left is a mass of consumers and producers. Dehumanized to this extent we could be (and in fact we are) an easy target for various social experiments like mass immigration and multiculturalism. Our mainstream media won’t warn us — in fact they are taking a part in this monstrous experiment.

The fate of such a society hammered by both immigration and outsourcing is described in an essay written by Martin Hutchinson and appropriately titled “Eroding Western living standards”:- - - - - - - - -

Since the majority of location-dependent jobs in Western countries are low-skill it therefore follows that if governments wish to protect local living standards, they need to discourage low-skill immigration. Except in Japan, they have not been doing so; both in the EU and the United States low-skill immigration, frequently illegal immigration, has got completely out of control and is immiserating the working classes. The Economist and the Wall Street Journal calling for looser immigration laws are like Reform Bill-era Whig grandees calling for the workhouse; their urgings are theoretically driven by aristocratic concern for the poor, but in practice betray a complete lack of understanding of what the poor actually want and need.

From the summary above, it is pretty clear that income levels in the West are converging with those in the more competently run emerging markets. The bad news is that in the years ahead this is likely to happen through an absolute decline in Western living standards. The populations of India and China greatly exceed those of all the rich countries put together. Further, as discussed above, the greater part of Western economies is vulnerable to low-wage competition. Thus the economic histories of a high proportion of the Western population under 30, except the very highly skilled, will involve repeated bouts of unemployment, with job changes involving not a move to higher living standards but an angry acceptance of lower ones. By 2030, it is possible that the median real income in the United States and Western Europe may be no more than 50-60% of its level today.

I would add to Martin Hutchinson’s observation that not only blue-collar workers will be affected by wage depression, but even large numbers of white-collar people. No shiny outlook for the middle class. For example, I have tried google and got the following links.

Apparently, the outsourcing and hiring of immigrants from India, China and Eastern Europe has already pressured salaries in the field so far downwards, and the competition that caused the stress is so high, that local people are hesitant to send their children to study information technologies. Immigration yields the need for more immigration.

Here I’m supposing that the quoted source is correct and the numbers haven’t been created out of thin air in order to press for the import of more cheap labour, which is also possible. Many of these open positions created in Western countries are directly designed for a cheap foreign workers, and local people need not apply. I urge you to see this US video documenting how NOT to find a local worker and get them from abroad.

The London Olympic games are cited as a reason to bring in even more immigrants. Please note that “unskilled workers” are demanded. Apparently decision-makers aren’t worried about the impact of their mismanagement: the UK is facing an unprecedented increase in poverty due to immigration.

Where all that will lead us we can see on the example of contemporary California. Once a part of the Western world, it has ended up as an extension of Mexico, with an apocalyptic fiscal deficit of more than 14 billion dollars, rampaging criminality, and Latino gangs waging a race war against the remaining black population of Los Angeles.

There will be no miraculous cure for this situation and the economy of this state will degenerate to the status of a Latin American country with all its attributes. Needless to say, the young Mexican/Latino population will neither be in position to produce the economic output necessary to take a care of elderly American people, nor will they want to do that. Old people without their own children who could care for them will be facing a bitter end to their life.

Indeed, the biggest problem of people struggling against immigration, Islamization and the consequent demise of our civilization is that they are paying attention to bigots from the left whilst the economically driven motor of contemporary mass immigration remains unaddressed, to our own peril.

Fortunately, we could still change the course of the future, but we must accept the fact that our enemy is not only lefty liberal politicians but also the unscrupulous entrepreneur who has managed to corrupt our society.

The majority of immigration is economically driven now. Without accepting this reality we will remain one-eyed in our struggle for our rights and dignity and consequently we will lose our fight.

So returning to the charge of socialism: at the end of the day we will land in socialistic poverty as a mass of people without culture, identity, or rights. The consequence of the neo-liberal free ride is the socialist cesspool.